1. 1. Avoid the generic boiler plate response at all costs! Personalise your bid as much as resource, time and budget allow. Remember your audience. Consider the stakeholders who will read your response and make sure youre giving them what THEY are looking for. Check, check and check again that youre addressing the core questions and concerns raised in the request. Focus on presentation: drive the quality of your layout as much as you drive the quality of your content. Make the most of your software, and consider using your agency to help you create templates to ensure your layout is clean and appealing. Be personal. Its always harder when you cant present and get the audience to know you in person, but there are many ways to bring the team behind the bid to life. Use images, quotes and biographies to develop some intimacy. Mind your language! Its easy to slip into the trap of using company jargon, so run a find and replace on key words that you want to avoid using. Make it easy for readers to navigate your proposal, whether youre submitting online or offline. Task your colleagues with finding key pieces of information in under a minute if they cant do it, make it easier! Be a great storyteller. We know you have lots of important information to fit into each proposal, but do take a step back and see how your proposal flows remember that every compel- ling story has a strong beginning, middle and end. Get visual. Pictures do speak a thousand words (and sadly bid responses are just that, thousands of words!) so bring your response to life with great images. Anticipate and answer questions that havent been asked. Obviously you have to answer the questions of the bid, but if there are questions or suggestions you want to put forward do make sure they get squeezed in somewhere! Dont be afraid of white space. Give your readers room to think by breaking up the text your readers will appreciate the time to digest as they read through your response.